is it upside down? should it be ninety degrees clockwise? is it a cautious nexus of control and inevitability? is it an acid sandwich? this is why i need you, dear readers. it's the mystery canvas challenge!

MB: Yes. She's never seen SoHo or Tribeca, and I grew up there, so I feel it's necessary. But it's horrible, because she's way too little to put down. I have to walk around with her in my arms, and I look like one of those girls who has a small dog.

it's been a giveth and taketh away couple of days in these parts. the boys and i followed the trail of free shit down to design week kickoff events in the meatpacking on saturday, where pretty ladies gave me complimentary sangria and we flinched at the surprisingly hardcore victorian porn films at wonderland beauty parlor's wallpaper exhibit. joe found an amusing ratty old canvas at the local housing works thrift shop; i'll post a picture tomorrow for a rousing game of "outsider art: which way is up?". we also met the indescribably comfortable argo chair at karkula, which is where my money would go if i wanted to drop $4250 on something for my butt.

on saturday night i became the very last wannabe hipster to discover the backroom, a latter-day speakeasy (funded by tim robbins, of all people) hidden behind a mysterious gate on the lower east side. i didn't get the chunky-necklace-and-victorian-shirt memo, so i hid in a corner with my teacup of diet coke and tried to hide my bad pedicure and target flip-flops. is it normal to feel like a square old fart at twenty-seven?

yesterday was a lovely crunch day, as i wrote three wee pieces for the next issue of the magazine and was asked to take over a regular page. i was feeling like a very together young lady right up until i poured a pint of chili into my purse. well played, new york monday. well played.

kidchamp HQ isn't the best party venue in town, as the bathroom is on the other side of our often dodgy bedroom, we have only two chairs and approximately eight square feet of table space, and the cats like to vomit on strangers. were we in the habit of throwing big to-dos, though, we'd certainly have one tonight. from gawker:

You see, Access Hollywood sends daily press releases plugging whatever will be on that night’s show. Tonight, it’s an interview with O.C. starlet Mischa Barton (who coincidentally used to date charming Brandon Davis). Well, that’s nice. Except that the email completely spoils tomorrow night’s season finale. IN THE SUBJECT LINE. No warning, no looking away, no escape — if you so much as glance at your inbox, Access is going to fuck up your Thursday.

Sure, the season’s outcome was rumored in a few publications, but to have it confirmed by the show’s star? Via Access, of all places? That’s just not right. It’s like when the Times spoiled Million Dollar Baby. Except more retarded.

[...]

From: NBC flackTo: GawkerSent: 4:14 PMSubject: ON THE NEXT “ACCESS HOLLYWOOD:” MISCHA BARTON CONFIRMS HER CHARACTER ON “THE O.C.” DIES AND REVEALS WHAT THE SHOW HAS IN STORE FOR FANS

i'm virtually certain that i haven't passed the spoilage on to you, dear readers, as 1) jacob could be the only man alive who follows this site and watches the o.c., and $10 says he saw these rumors weeks ago, and 2) even i guessed that mischa would get it, and i'm so slow that saved by the bell twist endings used to shock me. all that, of course, is beyond the point - the point is that unless the spoiler hoax theorists on the television without pity boards are on to something, our bony little friend will no longer be blocking a small sliver of my view of newport beach on thursday nights. zounds!

since you can't all make it to the HQ, i declare this space the virtual mischa barton deathwatch party. predict how marissa will snuff it!* tell us, courtesy of seventeen's quiz, which o.c. character you most resemble! most importantly, raise a glass at 9 pm: skeletor, we hardly knew ye.

*best guess gets my august 20, 1990 issue of us weekly. cover lines include harrison ford: presumed cool and spike lee: why is he so angry?

on saturday night, joe and i wandered up to lincoln center to see david blaine in his giant manbowl. almost a week into "drowned alive," his experiment in self-pickling, several hundred people were watching him blow bubbles and make mysterious gestures at foreign tourists (and, let's be honest, a lot of locals).

"No one would analogize what David Blaine does to what occurs on our stages," said Reynold Levy, the president of Lincoln Center. "But the emotions he evokes, the feelings he has engendered, are universal. He is doing to New Yorkers what almost no one can. He's stopping them in their tracks. I look at their faces, and I see complete wonder and bewilderment."

Ann Sheridan, a Manhattan resident who took in Mr. Blaine's watery world about 10 p.m. on Thursday with several friends, drew comparisons to the public art project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude that swaddled Central Park in sheets of saffron last year. "It's like 'The Gates,' " she said. "Nobody understood what 'The Gates' meant, but everybody went and saw them."

(new york times, 05.07.06)

i was thinking of christo as we stared at blaine, actually; are blaine's performances public art? can they be compared with, say, performances at the lincoln center (or 'the gates')? i'm not particularly fond of DB (and we fell quite a bit short of "complete wonder" at bubblefest this weekend), but i'm having trouble with a definitive 'no.' peanut gallery?